Bargaining wage growth reined in: data

Date: December 04 2012

Wages growth under enterprise bargaining agreements was further reined in during the September quarter, new federal government figures show.

The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations data shows the average annualised wage increase through collective agreements was 3.6 per cent, down from 3.7 per cent in the June quarter and 4.4 per cent in the previous three months.

The annualised rate for the private sector fell 0.4 percentage points to 3.9 per cent in the September quarter, and dropped by 0.3 percentage points in the public sector to 2.8 per cent, according to the report released on Tuesday.

The overall result was roughly in line with the Reserve Bank of Australia's preferred wage growth measure for the same quarter.

The September quarter wage price index, released in November by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, showed an annual rate of 3.7 per cent - well below the 4.5 per cent level normally considered a threat to the inflation outlook.

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